Four Act Tragedy
by Phantasmagoria
Summary: Murder, violence, deception, denial - four separate scenes that take place in Duncan's bedchamber that fateful night when Macbeth decides to let Vaulting Ambition take over, narrated by three very different people with their own dark secrets to hide.


A/N: This was a writing task our English teacher gave us to write when we were studying Macbeth. For those of you who don't know, it's a famous play – a tragedy – written by William Shakespeare.  Driven by "vaulting ambition" and a particularly unscrupulous wife, Macbeth kills the King of Scotland, Duncan, while he is residing at Macbeth's castle. In the end however, due to opposing noblemen (Malcolm, Lennox, etc) and his own overpowering sense of ambition, Macbeth meets his downfall – he gets his head cut off and put on a stick, actually.

This piece of prose concentrates on the four separate scenes that took place in Duncan's bedchamber that fateful night of the murder, narrated by three very different people: Macbeth, on the murder of Duncan; Lady Macbeth, on how she goes back into the chamber shortly after to return the bloody daggers and frame the guards; a noblemen called Macduff, who discovers Duncan's body; and lastly Macbeth again, on how he returns to the chamber (with another noblemen, Lennox) under false pretences that he knows absolutely nothing about the murder. I hope I've made things clear. If things still confuse you, stop trying to comprehend it and just enjoy Four-Act Tragedy as it is. Or try to.

Disclaimer: All the events are, of course, based on the real play "The Tragedy of Macbeth". Obviously I do not make any false claims to be William Shakespeare.

Four-Act Tragedy 

He lies before me on the bed, buried in the voluminous blankets that seem to conceal the weary worldliness of his limbs and smooth out the wrinkles on his face, till he is nothing but an innocent child, face unperturbed and pink like the unaware asleep usually are.

A single candle burns drowsily at the bedside table, its illumination barely reaching to the cavernous depths of the room. Slumped beside the door are two more oblivious sleepers, drooling lips and throaty snores induced by the drugged possets my wife had given them.__

_Just do it, _I can feel her whisper inside my head, and I tingle with the sensation. _Just plunge the dagger into him and the kingdom of Scotland will be ours. Or are you too cowardly to be a man?_

A man? What is a man doing, sneaking around the bedchamber of his guest and benevolent ruler during the premature hours of the morning, poised with a dagger and a will to strike it home?

_But screw your courage to the sticking place, and we'll not fail. _

No, indeed we will not fail. Shadows dance merrily across Duncan's face with every flicker of the candle's flame. He is but a mortal man, and all that stands before me and my rightful throne.

When the first stab came it came abruptly, a spontaneous jerk of my arm that sends the dagger glancing clumsily across his chest, going wide rather than deep. I stand breathless, withdrawn arm thrown back away from him almost by impulse, and watch in numb horror as his eyes snap open and the blood from his wounds seep onto the blankets to form crimson flowers that spread and uncurl their watery petals languidly.  

Our darting eyes meet and the same moment that he comes to the correct conclusion I come to mine. The second thrust is easier to execute, driven by the need to survive rather than by calculation, and with eye contact maintained we both feel the dagger drive home. He gives a great shuddering gasp, and then is silent.

How hard it is to retract an entrenched dagger from a stiff and lifeless body. I pull at the bloody weapon, and in doing so it slips and slashes over his torso like a hot knife over butter. But what does it matter? Duncan lays there, his glassy eyes void of life, and he feels nothing. He is steeped in the bliss of eternal sleep – but I shall henceforth sleep no more. I shall never wash this crimson flood from my hands. I shall never stop hearing it pour from my ears, till everything around me is seen through a thick veil of blood. I shall never be able to sleep at night with the saturated blankets that threaten to drown me. No, it is the living that have to suffer.

With a trembling hand I reach out and close his eyes, but in my mind's eye I can still see them staring at me in accusation. And now I have come full cycle, because here he lies before me on the bed, buried in a bloody grave that seems to strangulate him with hateful tendrils of crimson, till he is nothing but a stained, mangled rag doll, face unperturbed and pink like the dead seldom are. 

***

I must not look back. My petrified husband hovers outside in the courtyard with the incriminating evidence dripping from his hands, while his bloody piece of work looms somewhere ahead in that dark tunnel of a room before me, and in my hands I hold two stained daggers still fresh from their assault, ready to ruin two more mortal lives.

And I am but a woman. The smooth and delicate fingers I pride myself on, usually used in tasks like embroidering and harp playing now clutch between them stark, bitter weapons of destruction.

I must not look forward. Did I not once swoon at the sight of a decapitated boar at the marketplace? Imagine what the mutilated body of a man, warm with life only minutes ago, could do to this obscure and tortured brain of mine.

The two guards drown in the heaviness of drug-induced sleep, not knowing that soon they shall drown furthermore in the blood and indictment of a murder they have not committed. Quick, wipe the blood over their faces before more is spilt over your favourite lilac dress – there, the act is done, and in the name of Hecat let its consequence fulfil its purpose.           Now to drop Death's scythes in their laps; how glad I am that I shall never have to see these cursed weapons again!

Yes. No. Do not look forward! Or I shall have to claw my eyes out. If I should wander over to the dimly lit bed and expose myself to that infectious plague of death my stomach shall churn and regurgitate through my mouth, and I shall choke to death. Go, go, now! With a spur of heedless energy let these steeds propel me from this dark cavity and into the company of the living again. Let my features rearrange themselves into ones of confidence and poise, so that when my spineless husband sees me he shall put on brief composure. Let the trembling of my limbs cease, and curb all thoughts of Duncan lying there with his guts spilled over the mattress … Oh.

I shouldn't have looked. Now when I open my eyes in the morning I shall see not the face of the man I love, but the face of the man I as good as killed … 

I must not look back. I must not look back.  

***

It pains me to have to disturb His Majesty at such an ungodly hour, but it is imperative that the matters be discussed as soon as possible. His Majesty is a good king, and has so kindly appointed our meeting at a time of which he knew to be convenient for me. He will not begrudge me of prolonging his waiting by my lateness, as allowances have to be made for the wild and unruly night that met our travelling camp.

The worthy Macbeth is indeed a commendable host. I see that he has resided our King in the most spacious and comfortable of bedchambers, with many precious ornamental furniture that adorn the room. There is the inner part of the – good lord, what is this? Lying in a tangled pile at my feet are the two limp bodies of His Majesty's guards, their noses red and their breath sneezy. Contemptuous fools – they have drank the night away and denied the honourable King of their service. When the drunken donkeys awake I shall charge them with high – 

Treason! Oh, horror, oh, oh, is that the King? The King! – drenched in his own blood on the blankets and great livid gashes over him and his limbs spayed at such grotesque angles and he is – no! Is this terrible scene I see before me so cruelly real? Or am I just hallucinating and deceiving myself with my own eyes, for I have gone stark, raving mad? Oh – be it so! His Majesty – his loyal, kind, worthy Majesty _cannot _– he should not, he must not – he is.

Do I dare touch him and feel his pulse? No, it is absurd – wounds like these would have slain a Titan. And so no man can bring him back now. Oh – what to do, what to do? Yes, I must tell the others – quick! – before the wretched murderer has a chance to escape. Oh, when I get my hands on him … I'll wreck on him this murderous hatred I feel welling up in me …

***

I feel nothing, and yet I feel everything.

_False face must hide what the false heart doth know. _These words must be my tenet the moment I enter that wretched room, this time as a loyal subject who will grieve for the death of his King. Oh, but what is there to say that the moment I rest my eyes on that body again all self-control shall not collapse and cause me to unwillingly betray my guilty secret?

Once again I push aside the heavy oak door and step back into that dark crypt in which the murdered lies. Lennox besides me looks pale with anxiety as he turns his searching glance around the contents of the room. Does he suspect that anything is amiss? Can he not see the guilt and remorse so blatantly displayed across my face? If the walls and furniture of a room can talk, their tongues will be ablaze with the animated recollections of events that have taken place here not more than an hour ago. I doubt that I can keep up this ignominious performance anymore: to be mad with anxiousness when I already know all, to be devastated with sadness when I have already felt all, and to display anger at the assassin when none is due but to myself.

"_No!_" With a weak, breathless cry Lennox lunges himself at the bed where he has seen the lifeless body of Duncan. "No, please, no …" he clasps a limp hand in his, and kneeling over the body begins to sob, his broad, muscular shoulders shaking with the fragility of a leaf.

With leaden legs I walk towards the bed and permit myself to let loose a roar of rage that sounds hollow and mechanical to my ears. "What beast has had the heartlessness to commit such a horrendous crime?" I yell, throwing my arms up into the air.

Lennox turns towards me and as he does, renders the body he was bending over into full view. The golden rays of dawn that stream in from a nearby window pours onto the corpse and light the bloody spectre of death up in a mock halo. The brightness stings my eyes for a second, and then I turn away quickly before Lennox can see the terror and revulsion on my face. In the glare of the light it had seemed for a brief second that Duncan's head had turned, marionette-like, to face me.  

There are the two guards near the doorway, slowly stirring from their deep slumber, the sticky congealed blood smeared over their faces and hands and the daggers upon their pillows.

It was pure instinct. In one movement I grab the handle of Lennox sword, withdraw it from its scabbard before he has the chance to protest, advance towards the two vulnerable forms on the floor, and bring my sword down upon them. It is not polite to describe in great detail how the guards are violently disembowelled and beheaded. Onslaught after onslaught - my arms have a life of their own in this desperate attempt to curb the stream of emotions within me. Of rage? Of sorrow? Or of regret …

Strong arms from behind finally pull me out of my aggressive trance. Shoulders heaving uncontrollably, I look down at the bloodied pile of body parts before me and feel my stomach buckle. 

I barely hear Lennox's reprimand, "Macbeth, what have you done? Have you gone mad?" 

Perhaps I have. Perhaps my brain has finally caved in under all that has happened. Perhaps I have overdone my act of unsuppressed grief over Duncan's death. But am I acting at all?

I feel nothing, and yet I feel everything.  

FINIS 

A/N: I would really appreciate it if you take a few seconds to review. About anything under the sun if you want, but irrelevant flames would be used to toast marshmallows. 


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